art @lemonjamdraws

The heat’s been brutal this summer but we still gotta eat! If you’re like me, heat might suppress your appetite, and the last thing any of us want is to sweat over a hot stove and oven when it’s already boiling outside. Here are some of my favorite hot-weather recipes to keep hydrated and fed with when the weather is unbearable! (All recipes should be un-paywalled).

NYT’s best gazpacho (lives up to its name!!)

Persian cold cucumber soup (if you like tzatziki you will like this!)

Eric Kim’s cold noodles with tomato (infinitely riffable Korean flavor profile — for a creamier and less brothy take, try these cold sesame noodles too)

Vietnamese chicken and herb salad (this is an excellent time to get a rotisserie chicken so you don’t have to turn the oven on)

Radish sandwiches with butter and salt (and in a similar vein, if you dig this flavor combo you should try this Polish cottage cheese dip on some good rye bread or even crackers)

It’s still a little early in the season, but you can never go wrong with a BLT (or, if you don’t eat bacon, try this tomato furikake sandwich in its place)

Infinite iterations of pasta salad! You can use anything you got but here is a template I like.

Assorted dense bean salads. This back pocket canned salad is a weird combo of jarred ingredients but it slaps, this hoagie-inspired one is super satisfying, and cowboy caviar is a classic for a reason.

Poke bowls! Canned tuna mixed with some kewpie mayo and sriracha is a budget-friendly riff on the usual ahi and makes everything taste like a spicy tuna roll, but use whatever proteins you like, this is more of a loose template.

The Trump administration never disclosed this mission to the Congress committees tasked with overseeing military and intelligence operations. The article also points out that many of those involved in that mission were promoted.

Like, yes that mission was deplorable. No those civilans didnt deserve to die. But acting like North Korea is not a brutal warmongering dictatorship ruled by martial law is dangerously ignorant. We know what life is like, we have testimonies from refugees and from South Korean/our own monitering.

As in hindsight, yeah there's some things I wish I got to see or see expanded upon:

Zuko meeting the 41st Division, and how they're thankful that he stood up for them, and it just added to the honor and integrity he had in that moment. Or something. Idk, it feels like it's could be another great emotional moment for him. NAtLA did bring it in, but would've loved to see what would've been done in the cartoon. I saw one take where the soldiers with Jeong Jeong were the 41st Division.

Aang meeting and working off Ty Lee, especially as I like the theory that she may descend from Air Nomads/airbenders. If that was explored, that could range from touching for Aang to learn he may not be as alone as he thought, to an interesting dynamic and tension for him given Ty Lee is best friends with Azula and is a villain for most of the show. Depending on your stance on what LoK claims, could be interesting for Aang to potentially face the reality that airbenders could have non benders as well. Or there could be some potential drama of Ty Lee is an airbender who was right under Azula's nose and kept it secret.

I absolutely would love to see Kanna's backstory, her journey from the North Pole to the South. A nonbender who had to travel across the globe during a war, and could only work off wit as I anticipate she didn't have much if any combat training. There's a story there that is glossed over. And potentially getting to see who Hakoda's father was as its curious to me that he's not talked about at all.

By extension, I wouldn't have minded seeing a bit more on Iroh's backstory. I will say, he's one of those characters I am fine not knowing his history and leaving it up to the imagination, but that curiosity is there, just a tiny expansion.

Letting Katara and Sokka have an ep or two that actually focuses on them. Thinking back to it, while they work off each other, they never really had any episodes dedicated to them as siblings.

Toph and Zuko road trip. I just want the potential chaos of that dynamic.

Katara and Suki focused eps, as I realize they never worked off each other despite Suki dating Sokka. By extension, maybe an all girls ep when they're all together, with Katara, Toph, and Suki. Work off that joke of boys off having a chill time while girls are having a rough adventure.

AtLA's answer to the origins of the Avatar and the fate of Ursa. I did not care for the answers given in LoK or the comics.

Potential Azula Redemption. I'm open to the possibility, and I did hear the apparent plan, if it was allowed to ahppen, was that it was going to be harder than Zuko's, and that Zuko wanted a chance to try and be there for her like Iroh was for him.

Blue Spirit and Painted Lady team up, not even in the romantic sense, just, you got these two characters both pretending to be spirits and you don't ever have them meet up and team up? Missed opportunity.

Closure on Toph with her mom. Mindful, I haven't looked into it, but I haven't heard anything on the outcome between her and her parents, and based on the comics not sure I want to. But the show never answered how things went after they sent that letter.

Speaking of which, I wish I got to see Toph and Bumi work off each other, I saw once someone had an idea that Bumi should've named Toph his heir and that's a thought I like so much more.

Another Toph focused ep I wish we got was on Aang blaming Toph on Appa getting taken. It is a nice detail that Toph made an effort to learn and improve upon her sandbending

but I feel that was dropped when something should've addressed it. I almost feel like The Runaway should've been an Aang-Toph ep instead, as an ep that focused on conflict between Toph and Katara, I feel that should've been an s2 ep as you got them bonding in Ba Sing Se. Not to say they couldn't ever have any conflict in the future, but to me, the levels of the conflict between them feels it should've been placed earlier after Toph joined. Maybe it's just me, but I feel like there should be something of a consequence to Aang blaming Toph for Appa's theft. Especially as that's some of his worst, and he's taking his anger out on the wrong people.

I would also have loved to see an expansion on airbenders and their potential cultures, and Aang potentially coming across these differences and offering new perspectives or a new way to learn about air. As you look at the other elemental nations and you get to see there are variations:

Water Tribe and Swampbenders

Fire Nation and Sun Warriors

Earth Kingdom and Sandbenders

So I wonder what would be the variation for airbenders, what else is there than the Air Nomads? Would they be like, storm chasers or storm benders? A more aggressive, weather focused form of air? Would they be more like bards? Air is an element tied to communication and sound carries through the air, so would they be more musical and expressive?

And I know it would take away from the tragedy of his situation, but I also wouldn't have minded to see that there are a small few surviving airbenders, they just hid themselves away, and it can play into the reality that its unlikely the FN really did terminate all of them, and it can play into these traveling folk mingled with many, and ignoring LoK's claim that there are no non bending airbenders, it is possible any non bending descendants had airbenders themselves. It would take some pressure off Aang and any SO he has to have as many kids as they can to try and rebuild. I'd also be intrigued to see how Aang and the survivors may rebuild the culture, especially if we see a different variation of airbenders that don't follow the way of Air Nomads or if they work off another culture entirely as that's where they lived.

I'd be intrigued to see a Yue focused ep post ascending and how she works La, and what's that line between her and Tui, if there is one. I'd also be intrigued to see if the SWT had their own spirits they turned to, and they got weaker as they got thinned out, or is La meant to represent the SWT while Tui was more the NWT?

If it was made today, I would love if Mai and Ty Lee became a couple. I did really enjoy their dynamic, but I will admit I am also partial to the Goth/Pixie pair. They are the only non major couple I would've loved to have seen made official.

I wish we got a glimpse of Lu Ten and Kuzon, especially the latter. For how much he's brought up, I'm surprised we never quite saw him.

I would not have minded to see the other major Avatars expanded upon as we only got glimpses of them. Also like, do they all exist together in their own pocket of the Spirit World? Is there a dysfunctional Avatar village that's a mix of rivalries and friendships? Do they all gather around to watch the present Avatar's latest adventures and have commentary on that? I don't need it, need it, but I feel like this is a potentially funny thought or interesting to see.

There's probably other things I haven't thought of, but here is a good chunk of things I wish or wouldn't have minded seeing expanded upon or done in the og series that we just didn't get it, but could've been done in that ideal remake of AtLA.

little introductions to my vampire x nun yuri ocs 🖤 expect a bunch more of them (both sfw and not)

So stoked to share the official trailer for the Avatar Aang movie, now releasing JULY 25th on Paramount+!!

but you deserve to give informed consent to that process.

the lies around pregnancy - that it's inherently safe, that it doesn't do you permanent damage, that it's only extremely rare for people to die of pregnancy complications, etc like

all of these are lies constructed so that more people will get pregnant w/o knowing all that

there needs to be more talk about the impact of miscarriages and how common they are, how different abortion processes are and how accessible they are

but also like. talking about how pregnancy fucks your body up should not be taboo

this is a process that permanently changes most people's bodies, and that's even if the pregnancy doesn't do them like. severe illness or injury

and i just think everybody should have a right to KNOW that

When I was pregnant I was in a million forums for pregnant people because (cough adhd hyperfixation) and I had something called SPD (Symphysis pubis dysfunction) (not Sensory Processing Disorder though I also have that) which is where your pubic bones separate early (more or less) because they get all loosey goosey as your body gets ready to crank that baby out.

Except my pubic bone got confused and got misaligned at like 3 months pregnant. I could barely walk. I couldn't roll over in bed. Doing something that required me to shift my weight from one foot to another like opening a door knob was like an excruciatingly painful knife being stabbed into my pubic bone, I can't express how intense and blinding it was.

So I am in one million baby forums like "am I dying what is happening why is there a knife in my pubic bone" and all these people are like "I have that too! my doctor says it's normal and not to worry because it doesn't hurt the baby. I just deal with it by laying in bed for months in excruciating pain and think about how lucky I am to be having a little miracle growing in my body."

So lol nope. I went to my midwife and they are like, "Oh squeeze a can between your knees look up a physical therapy youtube on SPD" and I did that can-squeeze thing and it CURED THE PROBLEM in ONE DAY. I had been SUFFERING, y'all, it felt miraculous.

And I was so full of rage (flames, flames on the side of my face) that people are being told "Oh, it's NORMAL just deal with it" "It doesn't hurt the baby." Like, look, yes it's NORMAL but it's 100% treatable!!! SPD (again, not Sensory processing disorder) affects 1 in 5 pregnant people.

I was lucky to have amazing midwives (need a gender neutral term for that profession, but they see pregnant men and women)(side note highly recommend midwives if you are gender nonconfirming/a man/etc) and I have DOZENS of examples of shit like this.

Some people in moderate car crashes are very lucky, and walk away with zero injury. Some are very unlucky, and die. But most people fall into the third category, where they'll be injured at the time, then heal, and then for the rest of their life they have some minor and liveable complication from the injury. Like a knee that lets you know when the rain is coming, or a back that doesn't like seats without lumbar support, or a shoulder that never quite gets its full range of motion back.

she's been suffering with this since she gave birth to me. I'm 38 years old. she had that surgery last week.

Granted, it still needs to be updated because not just women give birth.

Here is an etymologically equivalent but gender neutral term I just made:

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She is a child who has lived her entire childhood in war and pain. This intense heat is so, so bad. She is crying and unable to scratch her body.

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